1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an imaging apparatus for imaging a biological specimen containing cells or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
In medical or biological science experiments, sample tissues picked from a living organism or cells or the like cultured in a liquid or gel-like culture medium are, for example, observed and measured as a specimen. For this purpose, an analysis system configured by combining an imager for optically imaging a specimen to obtain an image and a calculator for analyzing the image obtained by the imager is proposed, for example, in JP2000-275539A.
In an imaging apparatus for imaging an image used for this kind of purpose, imaging while replacing a plurality of specimens of different types, culture conditions and the like one after another, time lapse imaging of imaging a growth process of cells in one specimen at time intervals a plurality of times, and the like are performed.
In imaging a biological specimen as described above, the specimen may be affected by an environment in which the specimen is placed during imaging. For example, contamination-causing substances such as bacteria or spores of fungi having entered the imaging apparatus from outside, substances separated from a specimen used for the previous imaging and the like may be mixed into the specimen to contaminate the cells and the like contained in the specimen.
The apparatus has been conventionally manually sterilized by an operator. There have been cases where the above cause of contamination cannot be said to be sufficiently eliminated mainly due to a human error such as remaining contamination-causing substances caused by an error in an operation procedure or inconsistency in operation or the omission of a sterilization operation itself.